China Seeks to Contain Dairy Crisis
As Illness Count Doubles

BEIJING -- China's government doubled the official tally of children sickened by tainted formula and stepped up efforts to address the domestic fallout from the scandal.

China's Ministry of Health said Sunday that 12,892 infants were in hospitals after ingesting formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, including 104 whose symptoms are "severe." An additional 1,579 babies have been treated and released from the hospital, and 39,965 with less-severe symptoms have been treated without admission, the ministry said.

Milk dealers have been arrested and government officials fired as milk powder laced with melamine poisoned more than 12,800 babies and killed 4. WSJ's Loretta Chao reports.

State media have said four babies died from tainted formula, although the Health Ministry put the tally at three.

The government last week put the number of sick infants at 6,244. The ministry didn't explain the increase. It's possible the number rose because more hospitals have filed reports to the government.

The ministry said that all the sickened children appear to have consumed formula made by Shijiazhuang Sanlu Group Co., the Chinese company whose tainted products sparked the widening dairy crisis.

Also Sunday, Hong Kong's government said it found melamine in milk sold there by Swiss food giant Nestl&eacute; SA. Hong Kong's Center for Food Safety said it found low levels of melamine in one product, Nestl&eacute;'s Dairy Farm Pure Milk. It said "normal consumption" of the milk would "not pose major health effects," but recommended against letting small children consume it. On Friday, China's central government said its tests had cleared Nestl&eacute;'s milk.

A spokesman for Nestl&eacute; in Vevey, Switzerland, said the traces found in its Nestl&eacute; Dairy Farm product weren't the result of adulterated milk. Environmental traces of melamine are found in the food chain and don't pose a risk, he said . As well, the product is intended for adults, he said. "Our products are not made from milk adulterated with melamine," he said.

ENLARGE

Farmers in Wuhan, China, emptied unsold urns of milk Sunday after dairy companies cut back on production while the Chinese government investigates the presence of toxic melamine in dairy products.
Getty Images

Stores in China began taking domestically produced milk off the shelves last week after government testers found traces of toxic melamine in products from some of the country's top dairy brands. Foreign milk had been seen by the public as a safe alternative.

China's dairy crisis has prompted renewed international focus on China's product-safety problems. Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organization's Western Pacific director, said "there is much room for improvement" in coordination between Chinese agencies responsible for food safety. "Recent events point to the weaknesses in the food control system in China," Mr. Omi said at a news conference in Manila on Sunday, the Associated Press reported.

The scare is shaping up as a major test for the administration of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who since taking office in 2003 has emphasized the need to improve the lives of the less well-off and curb the excesses of rapid economic growth.

On Sunday, Premier Wen Jiabao toured a supermarket and visited sick babies in a Beijing hospital, and vowed to prevent future failures. "The government will put more efforts into food security, taking the incident as a warning," Mr. Wen said, according to the official Xinhua news agency. "This incident has revealed inadequate government supervision and shown a lack of professional morality and social responsibility by some companies," he said. "No such companies will be let off."

The State Administration for Industry and Commerce said it was ordering officials to increase scrutiny of the dairy industry by verifying the qualifications of producers and sellers and closing businesses selling products without licenses, Xinhua reported. The administration said it had received 106,143 complaints about dairy products as of Saturday.

The health scare has spread to a range of Chinese dairy products sold at home and abroad since emerging early this month. Hong Kong authorities on Sunday reported a three-year-old girl developed a kidney stone after drinking milk from one of the 22 Chinese dairy companies whose products tested positive for melamine last week.

Meanwhile, Singapore's government, which last week barred Chinese milk and dairy imports, said it found melamine in a popular candy from China called "White Rabbit Creamy Candy." And on Saturday, Japan's Marudai Food Co. announced it was recalling five products made by its Chinese joint venture because they contained milk from a Chinese company whose products have contained melamine.

The scare has also spread to Africa, where the government of Gabon announced a ban on imports and sales of Chinese powdered milk.

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